5 things that won’t happen when you use Liftshare

Using Liftshare for the first time and sharing a car with someone you haven’t met yet can be daunting. But there’s loads of benefits to giving it a go and over 500,000 currently active members agree it’s a great step to take.

Rather than list out all the good things about sharing (which we love to do, but you’ve read it all before…), let’s look at all the things that liftsharing doesn’t do:

When using Liftshare, you won’t…

Experience awkwardness about money

We’ve all been there – handling cash can be awkward around strangers. But with Liftshare, you’ve already agreed the price for your petrol contribution online before you ride.

It’s up to you if you pay at the beginning or end of the journey, but don’t forget! If it’s a one-off, it could be difficult to get money to the driver afterwards.

If drivers accept it, you can pay online through the Liftshare system. In this case, you pay in advance and payment is transferred to the driver either:

when they input a payment code, given to them by the passenger when the lift has happened;

automatically, 72 hours after the lift was scheduled to have taken place.

If you’ve remembered it, messaging or texting the code to the driver as soon as you can after the lift is a great way to help them receive payment faster.

Contribute to pollution

You may not have considered it, but by sharing with one person who would have otherwise driven, you’re taking a car off of the road – and therefore, cutting its emissions.

Liftsharers who share cars regularly to and from work through our site already save 673 tonnes of CO2 a week, which equates to 35,000 tonnes a year. That’s the equivalent of powering 3,696 homes worth of energy for a year, 9 wind turbines being installed, or taking 7,393 cars off the road for a year!

OK, so we can’t guarantee that you won’t spend some of your journey in amongst a frustrating amount of traffic, but by sharing a car, you’re doing your bit to help cut congestion by taking another vehicle off of the road.

Each car out of the congestion helps not just you, but everyone else in cars around you too – so you can consider yourself a Traffic Angel!

Get caught up in a strike

Whatever your view on industrial action across public transport, there’s no denying that it can seriously interrupt your travel plans and routines if you happen to be using a method or route affected – and at the time of writing, that’s quite a lot of the rail network!

Of course, as they’re volunteers making the journey anyway, Liftshare drivers aren’t making a living from the site and so don’t go on strike. You may also find that your Liftshare driver or passenger is a member of a striking union, helping out others get around during disruption; which can make for some really interesting in-car conversation.

Have to hitch-hike with strangers

Liftshare has been described as ‘hitch-hiking 2.0’, and it’s easy to see why, but it’s much safer.

Members message each other before they get into the car, so you can pre-agree the route, the price, and even what’s on the radio before you head to an agreed pick-up point. There’s no obligation to share with the first person who comes along, and you can make sure you’re getting to where you really need to be, rather than just somewhere along the way.

Liftshare really gives you piece of mind compared to hopping in the first car you find.